Every Christmas I ask God for a unique perspective on the Christmas story I hadn’t seen before. I have been blessed many times by Him with infusions of insight and creativity–and I wanted to share with you one of the products of these prayers. It is really a dramatic soliloquy, to be performed by a female actress. May you find it a meaningful meditation and a different point of view on the Christmas story.

The Shepherd’s Wife

My husband?? He’s gone now, has been for many years. My husband came from a long line of shepherds. Sure, it was kind of a rough life for him. Long hours, terrible weather, wolves, lions, disease . . . Come what may, he was a shepherd. It was a significant job, really. He was responsible for the sheep sacrificed at the temple. They had to be perfect, without blemishes, and male, one year old—to atone our sins and to please our God!

One night especially stands out in my memory. He and several other of the shepherds were watching their sheep, when, (it was hard for even me to believe, and I loved the man), when thousands of angels appeared out of the night sky and sang to them about peace on earth and of a child in a manger who was to be our savior, our messiah. A child!

So he went, and worshiped, and came home dazed and more excited than I had ever seen him. It really did take me quite a while to believe his story—that is, until I went to see him myself. What a child! When I neared this small infant, I felt something holy and peaceful. And those eyes. As I held him and he looked up at me, I knew that God was with him and in him. It’s hard to describe those feelings. . .

It wasn’t until many years after my husband died that I saw those eyes again. I had heard of his many miracles, and knew that He truly was the Messiah. In accordance with Jewish tradition, I made the short pilgrimage from Bethlehem to Jerusalem for the Passover. It was then that I saw him—only not as I had imagined in my wildest dreams! Only the morning after Passover, and he was condemned to die. My heart cried out to God, but I thought this was your Messiah! And then I saw him on the cross, with his mother, Mary, and a few friends gathered around.

In the darkness that enveloped us all, I had a vision. He, this baby my shepherd husband had been beckoned by angels to come and see, was the true Lamb, the true atonement for our sins—without blemish or imperfection—without sin. And here he was being sacrificed before my very eyes on a cross—not in the temple, like a Jewish lamb, but out in the open for the whole world to see.

It has been five years since that awful day. And the most amazing thing about the whole story? He lives! The perfect lamb lives! I have seen him with my own eyes, raised from the dead, watched him go up to heaven and heard him say he was coming back.

Well, I guess my point here is that Christmas is not about the shepherds, like my husband, it’s about the LAMB.